Luxembourg

When I told people that we would be traveling to Luxembourg, I heard a lot of comments regarding its size. In fact, the only thing one friend recalled about this place was the fact that it was "very small." In one of my work-related meetings, one person even joked that his system had data on almost every country in the world - including Luxembourg.

This small country in Western Europe is only 82 kms long, and 51 kms wide. In size rankings, it is 175th smallest (out of 194) in the world. There are only 450,000 people here, and around 120,000 (about 1/4 of the total) commute to Luxembourg everyday from neighboring countries to work. There are 3 official languages: German, French, and Luxembourgish (which is similar to German, but sounds somewhat like Dutch). English is also widely spoken.

Despite being very small, the capital (Luxembourg City) is also one of the richest cities in the world - per capita income is close to $70,000 USD, one of the highest worldwide. (In case you were wondering, the per capita income in the Philippines is a paltry $4,923 USD).

Due to its small size, you can walk around the city center and see all of its sights in around 2 hours. Because this picturesque city was built on a rock with deep valleys on each side, the sights were absolutely amazing:



Small countries have small armies - Luxembourg only has about 500 soldiers. Many of them become policemen or customs officials after their "tour of duty." Here is a picture of one soldier:


If Sparta could ward off those Persians with 300 soldiers, I guess Luxembourg can pretty much defend itself with 500.